The combination of Narad Muni and Brighu Muni is well known throughout the scriptures. Sri Venkatesha Kalyana is the prime example of their combined anugraha/leelas.

Sri VijayaDasaru is the pitamaha of Dasa Sahitya. Purundara Dasaru did not initiate any disciple into the Dasa Sahitya other than his sons. This work was exclusively left for Sri VijayaDasaru. Sri VijayaDasaru is first person who revived the Dasa Sahitya tradition by giving ankita to several shishyas. In this sense all Dasa Sahitya parampare find Sri Vijay Dasaru as their root.

Previous Birth

In his previous birth, Sri Vijaydasaru was born as the youngest son named MadhwaPati to Sri Purandara Dasaru. Once Sri Purandara Dasaru sent MadhwaPati to do naivedya to Sri Anjaneya temple. After offering naivedya young MadhwaPati was very disturbed that Anjaneya did not accept his offering. He started crying; Anjaneya immediately pacified young MadhwaPati and ate the offerings. Young MadhwaPati was overjoyed. One day Sri Purandara Dasaru followed MadhwaPati and saw this miracle with his own eyes. He too was overjoyed, such was the devotion of MadhwaPati for Anjaneya.

As Sri Purandara Dasara’s time was coming to an end; MadhwaPati asked why he left his number of compositions at 4,75,000; why not round it off to 5,00,000. Sri Purundara Dasa’s replied it was the wish of Sri Hari that the number be completed by “Vijaya Vittalla”. Thereby declaring the next avatara of Madhwapati !

The fact that we have been able to salvage just a fraction of 4,75,000 compositions is testament of the dying tradition.Sri VijayaDasaru was born to keep the promise of his previous birth to Sri Purandara Dasaru of completing 25,000 compositions and starting the HariDasa/DasaSahitya parampare once again.

Before Aparoksha

Sri VijayDasara’s story before Aparoksha is totally unique. Every other Madhwa stalwart had some position/knowledge/wealth or was young in age. Sri VijayDasaru is totally unique in that he was not given education, he had no money, he had no job, he was married, he was not able to sustain his family as per his own composition. As soon as he got Aparoksha; the entire situation around him changed completely.

Sri VijayDasaru was born as Dasappa in a small village called Chikalparvi. The village has an Ashwatt Narsimha installed by SriPadarajaru. People used to visit the village a lot because of this; because of the house expenses and the fact that people were very religious about guests then; their resources dwindled and soon they had no money. Dasappa went to his maternal uncle’s house for a marriage function where he was made to work the whole for extracting gandha. When he sat down in the last pankti; his uncle made him get up and threw him out. Dejected, he left for Kashi; he reached Kashi on the way he met some kind benefactors. On reaching Kashi and having darshana, he met a group of travellers, who were on their way to Rameshwara. On their way they stopped at Chikalparvi; he was recognized; his family convinced the travellers that to let him go. Dasappa was married and he was given a Shanbhough job (collecting taxes from Village folk). People in villages generally paid little or no taxes as a result, Dasappa was accused of mishandling and jobless again. He left for kashi again.

Aparoksha

This time after darshan of Kashi Vishwanath as he slept one night, he had a Divine Dream; Sri Purandara Dasaru escorted him from Kashi; crossed the Ganges to Vyasa Kashi. (VYASAKASHI IS 6KMs FROM KASHI (ALSO CALLED BENARES OR VARANASI). ) . Under the Ashwatt Vriksha, there was Sri Veda Vyasa holding Sabha with all the learned Sages. Sri Purandara Dasaru introduced Dasappa to Sri Veda Vyasa. Sri Veda Vyasa smiled pleasantly and asked Dasappa to stick his tongue out. Sri Veda Vyasa then wrote “Vijaya” on his tongue. This is the turning point for Dasappa who was now transformed to Sri Vijaya Dasaru. Sri Purnadara Dasaru escorted Sri VijayaDasaru back to Kashi and disappeared. Sri VijayaDasaru woke up from his dream; it was a surreal experience to say the least. He prepared for his morning bath, as soon as he entered the Ganga River for his daily ablutions, Sri VijayaDasaru realized it was no ordinary dream. Sri VijayDasaru was chanting sanskrit mantras with the force of Ganga (Ganga Pravaha).

The nirakshara dasappa (no knowledge) had been transformed overnight to Aparoksha Gynani Sri VijayaDasaru. The tejas had changed, the virtue had changed, the pavitrate, the dhaati, the whole persona was transformed completely.

After Aparoksha

People saw and the news spread like wildfire that a great tapasvi/gynani had arrived in Kashi. People were lining up to pay their respects. The Kashi King heard this news, invited Sri VijayDasaru personally and offered him great respect and lots of rich clothes and gifts. Sri VijayDasaru smiled, he remembered his previous condition and he offered all the respect he was receiving to Sri Vijaya Vittala.

“Nikila Jannara Kudumbo Deva” – In this composition Sri VijayDasaru clealy explains what his previous condition was and overnight how it has changed. All because of Sri Hari’s grace. The interesting line in this composition is that, he says all this glamour, recognition, wealth, status etc is not possible by my punyas. Therefore it is definitely your grace and no other reason.

* The lesson to learn here, is not to bargain with God; if God stops a lot of our paapas and gives us just a fraction to experience, conversly he multiplies the punyas and lets us experience sukha in fuller measure. Sri Hari is atyanta Karuna Sagara.

Although a lot of Kings were vying for Sri VijayaDasaru to stay with them. Sri VijayaDasaru returned to his village Chikallaparvi to his family and started living in the Dasa Sahitya way with his wife.

* Did not desire onsite 🙂

Sri VijayaDasaru revived the HariDasa tradition; he used to go singing Sri Hari kirtane with his tamburi and gejje to collect alms and collect whatever he could get that day. Sri Vijaya Dasaru’s wife would cook all the collected food items; Sri VijayDasaru would do naivedya and Sri Krishanrapanamastu and eat. They would never store any food items; all items were cooked on the day they were collected.

There was a time when Sri VijayaDasaru did not get alms for days together. His wife could not bear the trouble. Sri Hari immediately sent Sri MahaLakshmi and she came to Sri VijayDasaru’s house and delivered lots of food items and especially curd rice (masru anna).

Sri VijayaDasaru has protected his devotees from many harm. There is no limit to the Karuna he can shower on his devotees. Throughout his life, Sri VijayDasaru has helped the downtrodden, animals, gynani’s and lifted them up by his apara karuna.

One such ultimate and popular example

His adopted son, Sri MohanDasaru (Mandavi Rishi) had suffered Apamrityu! ( Death before allotted time). In the court of Yama Dharmaraya. Sri VijayaDasaru entered as Brighu Muni; everyone stood up including Yama DharmaRaya. Sri VijayDasaru explained the mistake and asked Yama DharmaRaya to correct it. Yama DharmaRaya acknowledged the mistake and corrected it. Back on earth, it 2-3 days since MohanDasaru’s passing and suddenly his body came to life.

Is there a better example of Guru ? A Guru who will go to Yama DharmaRaya and fight for his devotee. When you have such a Guru why fear even death ? At the most the samasara can do is death. Sri VijayaDasaru has proven that even death is no obstacle; he will go and bring back the soul for his beloved devotees.

He has humbled Sanskrit scholars who looked down upon Kannada literature as a degradation of Sanskrit.

Miracles at Chippagiri

Chippagiri is very close to my heart. I shall narrate one such incident, the structure for the PranaDevaru was constructed before the Prandevaru (Anjaneya) vigraha was brought in. When PranaDevaru Vigraha was brought in; it was found to be too large for the door. After trying for sometime they realized that something else needed to be done and so they put it off for the next morning and left the vigraha outside the structure.

In the morning when they woke up ! Lo !!! Wonders of Wonder … the Anjaneya Vigraha was installed inside the temple. People can verify it even today the Anjaneya Vigraha is large and the entrance is very small. Sri VijayaDasara brindavana is directly opposite the Sri Anjaneya Vigraha. Even today people are forbidden to block the path even during night, as Sri VijayDasaru every day worships Anjaneya and walks back to the Brindavana.

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Remarkable on day of Vijayadasra Aradhane I stumbled upon this. Personally, I love stories about saints they in a strange way inspire a lot of strength and shraddha. Sri Vijayadasaru is truly a remarkable Sadguru may he shower us with his blessings. Thank you for this very wonderful write up.

Thank you for your kind words. Stories of Tattvavada stalwarts are shastras as well; because it is stories of people who know shastra. Throughout their life they give us example on how to behave; they face situations worse than what we face and show us how to come out of it.